


Turning a Blind Eye

by CAPSING



Series: Finished, not Perfect [12]
Category: Naruto
Genre: (Kisame is the Magic), (but not really because Kisame isn't human), (on its way to becoming a tag!), Ableism, Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Blindness, Cannibalism, Demon Deals, Disabled Character, Graphic Violence, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Non-Consensual Kissing, Non-Linear Narrative, Off-Screen Murder, Suicidal Thoughts, everything is very vague and confusing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 15:48:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 9,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17563397
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CAPSING/pseuds/CAPSING
Summary: A blind man makes a deal with Death.Death, apparently, smells like a tuna sandwich.





	1. A Deal with Death

**Author's Note:**

> That one is from July 2015.  
> I've written a majority of it being incredibly sleep-deprived. See if you can spot which particular parts.

Death was cold. That was to be expected.

It was also wet. Which was not-as-quite-expected.

And it smelled quite salty.

Which was pretty confusing, when he thought about it. Death wasn't supposed to be anything at all; death was a void, a black hole in the fabric of life. It was an end, and empty. At least, that what he thought it was, during his time at the hospital, when the nights were long and the beeping from the machines around him made time stretch in agony, like a cramped muscle refusing to let go.

No one actually knew what death was, though, so maybe the salty smell was part of the routine.

Itachi opens his eyes, now out of habit, not practicality – and tries to register his current predicament.

 

"Took you long enough."

The unexpected sound startles him, and he jumps – then his lungs seem to remember _they are on fire_ – and he starts coughing uncontrollably, spitting water and droll over himself and his surrounding, feeling a pang of embarrassment, even after all he’s been through.

 

Being made to feel helpless was the norm. He thought at least Death would spare him this.

 

It takes several minutes before he can breathe again. By then, he realizes he's freezing and his muscles are stiff and aching. He clutches at his chest with one hand, and subtly tries to find a wall to lean against with the other – but there's none in his immediate surrounding. Vague memories surface like out of tar into his mind; a cruise ship; the overbearing smell of sun-lotion, with the sun burning down on him as he tries to find his way back to his room.

There was a dinner. There were many dinners, but there was this one –

His head starts feeling as if it’s being drilled onto, and he groans quietly, trying to sort out the mess and focus on the dinner.

There was –

There was a waiter. He smelled, despite his deodorante, and had a _tone_ Itachi found grating onto his nerves in a particular fashion.

That voice – it said –

There was a comment, slithery and spiteful, slithering into the polite conversation like a dagger snugly between his ribs–

The ribs around the lungs that burned the excess oxygen his vocal cords needed for him to raise his voice–

To shout at his parents –

To shout at _Sasuke–_

The memories are blurs that attack him relentlessly, and he lowers a feverish forehead to rest against a clammy-cold palm, feeling his heart-rate pick-up.

– Because Itachi _knew_ what they all thought of him. He knew his mother’s pity. He knew his father’s shame. He knew his little brother’s unspoken grief as his strong, successful brother melted down into an invalid individual, no longer the impressive figure Sasuke still remembered. He recalls the consuming anger and shame that stormed off after him as he made his way to their quarters, throughout the docks –

– the floor, slippery from seawater –

His heartbeat picks up, filled with dread.

He should mind his step. He should be careful.

 

The sound of his dress shoe squeaking.

 

A stunned moment when the world is nothing but the painful impact of iron against his spine.

 

Then –

Then–

 

 

Then falling –

 

 

 

 

The unfulfilled regrets that he could not articulate, sinking to an unmarked grave, with the faces of his family before his eyes.

 

 

His lips open, and keep their unspoken apologies to themselves.

"Am I dead?" Itachi asks the darkness quietly.

"Not yet." It replies.

"Where am I?" He opts to ask instead of prodding the ominous ' _yet_ '.

"Here."

"Where is here?" Itachi frowns. This line of conversation doesn’t benefit the pounding migraine he’s nursing.

"You ask a lot of questions."

"You don't give out much information."

The voice chuckles; the sound reminds Itachi of the ignition mechanism of an old truck, as someone turns its key for the first time in fifty years.

"I don't tend to talk to my meals much."

 

Itachi feels himself stiffen, automatically – but the dread he's expecting to wash over him does not come. Maybe the previous wave was all his brain could muster.

_'Shock_ ', he thinks to himself, and thanks evolution for this small mercy which slowly numbs him. He had many chances to think about dying, those last two years – at those long nights with those tedious machines, when his brain would not allow itself to shut up and shut down.

Those were the times he could feel himself losing his vision – both the one in his eyes and the one he treasured in his mind.

 He won't inherit his father's company.

He won't be able to read a book, or paint, or see Sasuke's paintings that decorate an entire wall in his office, each one framed and bright.

Death, he concluded, _his Death_ , would be much like his bleak future.

Only not as noisy, which Itachi counted as a good thing.

 

There's not much to say, after a statement like that.

"You don't seem very frightened." The voice inquires, sounding curious.

Itachi inclines his head, staring blankly at the voice's general direction. Rather than talk to what seems to be a psychotic cannibalistic murderer, he contemplates his life. He thinks of the harsh words he used when he confronted his parents, of the way he shook his brother's hand off his wrist.

It tinges the present with bitterness.

At least, he thinks, Sasuke would get to remember his brother as he was, before. When Itachi helped him with his homework, when they worked together on Sasuke's science project, when they worked on their katas, with Itachi gently adjusting Sasuke’s form.

When he could still see his little brother flushing when he admitted his first crush to him within their blanket fortress.

Sasuke would remember him as the big brother Itachi always strived to be; before he became a burden, a secret, a shame to his family's name. Before that company event when he fell on Akiyama-san, missing the last step, and caused him to spill wine over himself; before he knocked down Ogata-san’s ancient vase, a beloved family relic, and left the event with his father’s fingertips digging into his upper-arm and the loud whispers of pity stabbing at his wounded pride from every direction.

 

Nothing short of an actual _roar_ cuts off his thoughts – he picks up his head and directs it to the source.

 

"What?" he asks.

"You're not screaming. Or crying. Or begging." The voice rumbles, sounding displeased and a little bewildered. "You're human, aren't you? I'm supposed to look scary to you guys."

"I wouldn't know," Itachi smiles bitterly, "I'm blind."

"Blind?" It inquires. "What does that mean? Is it like _brave_?"

"It means I can't see."

"But you have eyes."

"I do."

"What good it is to have eyes, if you can't see?"

 

Itachi laughs.

At first he thinks he became hysterical, but then dismisses it. In this weird place, with its frigid stone floor, salty smell and freezing air, he feels a small warmth blooming inside his chest. ' _Stockholm syndrome, then_ ,' he decides, surprised. He thought Stockholm syndrome takes longer than a few minutes. His would-be-murderer is the first to speak bluntly to Itachi about his condition, not tip-toeing around it, just barging right through an open door and breaking its hinges for good measure.

Even though Itachi waited for a long time, no one has walked through this door all during those last two years.

 

"No good at all." Itachi replies, and when he smiles, its genuine.

 

There's a contemplating sound, then a large splash. Itachi feels the vibrations through the stone and the small currents in the air. Over the smell of saltwater, a new scent coats the air; it smells like the fish-stands in the market, which Itachi always hurried past. The dead, blank eyes of the dead fish always gave him chills.

Itachi shudders when huge palms cup his face. The skin is rough and jagged; it feels like sandpaper. He keeps still as cold breath puffs over his skin, smelling like blood and corpses. He closes his eyes and tries not to gag. He'd rather his death be quick, and offending his captor wouldn't ascertain that.

 

"Oi, keep those open."

"What for?" Itachi asks; his lips brush against what he assumes to be wrists as he speaks.

"I want to see how _blind_ looks like." The voice replies, sounding slightly aggravated.

"Haven't you seen enough dead things to know?"

"That's different. You're not dead."

"Yet." Itachi echoes back, and keeps his eyes closed.

 

There's a growl, followed by an unpleasant prickling sensation in the back of his skull. He feels fingers scraping around his eyes, trying to pry them open, and just squeezes them shut harder. Itachi’s face start feeling raw, on the verge of bleeding – but his body is exhausted, cold and worn. He picks small battles on his way to meeting death. He has given up on too much, forced to concede on things he didn't wish to, stripped from his independence and honour as he was treated through an algorithm of clinical, impersonal procedures; through countless of operations that could've been spared from him, could've saved him the false, useless hope. All if only his father could've seen him for himself, and not just as a tool – and a better heir than Sasuke.

His blindness is his own. He is not a puzzle, nor a puppet to be prodded and poked at to satisfy other's vapid curiosity, their dumb, invasive questions about intimate matters. The desires of this psychotic man do not matter to him, and he refuses to leave this world in nothing short of his own terms.

 

"How about," the breath of death ghosts over Itachi's lips, "we'd make a _deal_."

"What kind of deal." Itachi states, rather than asks. He has made plenty of deals, had dealt with dozens of lying, thieving weasels that tried to go for his throat while he wasn't looking.

(Back when that was still an option).

"You'd let me _see_ , and I'll let you go."

"Go where?" Itachi's lips twitch. "I don't know where I am, or how I got here. Even if you do keep your word and release me, I won't be able to find my way back."

 

The growling is back, fiercer than before – it's only a moment later, when he feels pain pounding in the back of his head, he realizes he'd been slammed against a wall.

 

"I _never_ ," the voice sounds inhuman, "go back on my _word_."

Itachi can feel it looming over him, his head still locked between the massive, hurtful hands.

"It doesn't change what I've said." He states, calmly, even though he can feel the shock starting to fade – adrenaline is just starting to make his fingers twitch. He knows it's not long before panic would seize him – and the mere thought stresses him even more.

 

There's sniffing.

 

"You're scared, now." The voice mocks. "Good."

Itachi remains quiet. His heart rate picks up, and his pulse quickens. One of the hands trails downwards, slow, unpleasant – and places itself over his heart.

 

"A different deal, then." The voice says. "You'll let me see the _blind_ , and I'll bring you back to where I've found you."

"You've probably found me in the bottom of the ocean, so I can't see how that'll help."

The voice snorts. "You're clever, for a human."

"I know." Itachi smirks humorlessly. "I'm a genius."

"A gena… genius?" it tests the word, sounding curious, again. "Blind and genius both," it mutters, "and you had to be some warm-blooded _mammal_."

 

It's probably an attempt to mess with him, and he tries to keep his composure – but the memories of choking in the ocean, the smell of salt and fish, his chaffed cheeks and the gritty voice are painting a picture Itachi's not sure he's willing to accept.

 

"What do they call you?" the voice asks; memories, dusty and pale, float swiftly and clearly before him, as Itachi recalls his grandmother's warnings, each time before she put him to bed. Reminiscing in his own personal world; he's nine and tells her _he’s not a kid anymore_ , he doesn't believe in ghosts and demons and kappas and tenukis or kistunes. He doesn’t _need_ a bedtime story. Grandma’s expression is blurry, in his memories, and Itachi fills in a loving smile upon thin lips when she kisses his forehead goodnight. She walks to the door and her eyes are sad when she promises to treat him like the grown up he is from now on.

_Never give them your name,_ Grandmother warned him, _for a name is a powerful thing, and you must never hand them such weapon._ Itachi's heart clenches as he thinks of all the wisdom he'd missed in another fruitless attempt to please his father. At nights he spent hidden just outside Sasuke's door, listening to his Grandmother’s voice weaving tales he knew by heart, enriched with his beloved brother's laughter.

 

"It's impolite to ask before making an introduction, yourself." He avoids, knowing the creature would not give out its identity.

There's a pause. "I don't have one. Names are for you, humans. You name everything, don't you, even when it doesn't do you any good." It pauses again.

 "My last meal gave me a name. _Kisame_ , she said. Over and over, it was annoying, really." Then it chuckles. "Tasted quite good – haven't tasted such soft muscles before."

_Kisame_ , Itachi thinks. _Demon Shark._

"Kisame, then." He places his hand over the one still upon his heart, feeling slimy, cool skin.

"How about we'll make a deal?"

 

* * *

 

 

Death was cold.

Itachi didn't like the cold much himself, so he chose to live, instead.

 

* * *

 

Inside his cave, Kisame grins.

Having the heart of a blind genius was much better than a mere meal.

He looks up at the moon peeking through,

 

and waits.


	2. Open Your Eyes

Itachi snaps up, gasping. He feels chilled with cold sweat and confusion, and for a moment, he’s too disoriented to notice his surrounding.  
“Nii-san?” Sasuke’s voice is worried. “What’s wrong?”  
“Just a bad dream,” Itachi replies, sinking back into the bed in their room. The cruise ship’s movement is barely noticeable anymore, like the ocean is standing still as they’re gliding through it. “Go back to sleep.”  
“Are you sure everything’s okay?”  
“Are you losing your hearing, little brother?” Itachi snaps, only to bite his tongue after.   
“No, Itachi,” Sasuke replies, patient, always patient with him, “– but it’s not like you to miss out breakfast. From a free buffet, too.”  
There’s a clink of a plate being sat on the nightstand.   
It smells good.  
“I’ve brought you a little bit of everything.”

Itachi chews on tepid scrambled eggs as seagulls screech outside his window; there’s a buzzing in his ears, like whispers he can never quite catch. The breeze blows into the room, ruffling his hair and bringing salt to tickle his nose, and by the next bite, 

he forgets.


	3. Count Your Blessings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> warning: character death

Itachi wakes up and keeps still. He has a feeling he can't yet name, a sense of foreboding, an ominous ripple in the current of his life. It’s been hunting him, those past few weeks, ever since they all came back from the cruise ship. Two weeks from now, he made an appointment to go see a psychiatrist; he suspects he’s beginning to show signs of paranoia (and even he can see how ironic that it).

Now he’s back home, which isn’t much of a home, really. It’s Itachi’s, sure, and he’s not that much of an ingrate to waste his blessing of having a property under his name before the age of thirty-five. Even if the house is too big for him, too far from his family to go by foot. A large property in a luxurious part of town, where most of his neighbours have gates, and even after living there for almost a year, he hasn’t a clue of even their names.

Itachi doesn’t have a housekeeper, so there’s almost a tinge of dust in the air, despite him cleaning it – one man can’t chase the dust away day by day, moreover when he’s spending most of it in his bed, doing nothing in particular other than letting another one of Sasuke’s calls go unanswered.

He knows it’s nighttime, for one, but the chill in his bones feel different. The noises downstairs would go unnoticed by anyone else – but even on the carpeted floor, Itachi can hear the footsteps; trivial creaking of the boards to other ears spells clearly in his mind – _intruder._ Itachi’s hearing was always sharp, and even at that moment, he’s unsure that’s a good thing.

He feels his mouth go dry and his heart is at his throat; if he'll try to turn on his cell that's on the other side of the room ­–

   
( _"You want cancer, too?" Sasuke bit at him, snatching the phone from his unsuspecting loose grip; after months of this routine, Itachi never charges his cellphone near his bedside._ )

 

– it'll make a noise that'll surely attract the intruder's – (he hopes it's just a burglar) –attention. His mind is quick to accuse him for his oversight – he should've installed an alarm system; bolted the front door; checked all the windows to see if they lock properly; he should've moved into an apartment building where he has neighbours that can hear him; he should've at least considered having a bedroom with a proper lock, not settle for this rickety excuse –

Teeth gritting, jaw tight, Itachi cuts off his inner Captain Hindsight in favor of turning the current events to his favor. The master bedroom is thirteen steps long, seven steps wide. The door is three steps to his right – and the key should still be in the lock, two full turns, clockwise. The phone is eight and a half steps across, then two to the right, upon the dresser, leaning towards the left area, near the wall.

He holds his breath, trying to stretch his hearing so he could estimate the intruder’s current location – but with the way the blood thrums in his ears, he can't. His hands are shaking; he clenches them and releases his breath slowly.

 _Just a burglar,_ Itachi tries to calm himself. _Even if they manage to get through. There's insurance and hardly anything worth stealing. Just give them the money, and they’ll leave here._

With panic nipping at the edges of his thoughts, waiting to lash out like a fire consuming a dry, forsaken field – Itachi readies himself, lowers his bare feet to the carpet, and starts counting.

 

_One, two, three –_

_I can do it._

– _four, five, six –_

A bird screeches outside. Itachi wonders what time it is.

– _seven, eight-and-a-bit, turn –_

There's a sound of a crash – then loud cursing.

– _onetworeach_ –

The cord gives meager resistance as he yanks at the phone –

– _onetwowhatwasonetwothreefourohgodsixsthey’recominghere –_

Itachi drops the phone as he throws himself against the door, his whole body shaking as he uses his left hand to lock the handle in place, and his right to turn a rusty lock that hasn't been greased in over a decade.

 

"S _ON OF A_ –" a growl sounds from the other side of the door. A moment later, the handle rattles; Itachi strains to keep it up.

The lock does not budge.

 

"I'm coming in, one way or another!" the intruder calls from the other side. It sounds like a grown man, and he sounds big. "Don't make it harder on yourself, open the fucking door!"

"There's a silent alarm that went off seven minutes ago, as soon as you entered here. The police are underway." Itachi's voice comes out steady and indifferent – his right palm is sweaty, and he has to use his left to keep his grip on the door handle.

 

The other man guffaws in anything but mirth.

"You think I'm stupid, pretty boy? I've been watching this place for the past week. There's no alarm system on this old dump." Itachi feels the door handle still; the man removed his hand from it.

 

"Here's what we're gonna do. You gonna open this fucking door and show me where are you keeping your vault, then you're gonna open it, hand me the cash – and if you're good, I won't turn you into swiss cheese. How's that?"

"No, thanks." Itachi pulls the key out, and swiftly shoves it back in a slightly different angle; the lock chaffs in the first turn, and groans in the second – then Itachi's panting, but his grin is wide. "I'd suggest you leave, now, as I'm calling the cops."

 

There's a distinctly familiar click muffled by the wooden door, a sound Itachi's mind does not acknowledge.

Itachi can't choose to ignore the meaning of the sound that follows and sends his ears ringing and his skin tearing with splinters – when the burglar shoots the door down.

 

He stumbles back, knocking into the bedside table and sending the glass of water down he keeps on the nightstand flying – it thumps against the carpet, wetting his toes.

"New plan," the burglar says. He smells like gun oil and powder, like cheap tabaco and a seedy gas station. "It goes like the first one, only this time, you get shot in the kneecaps."

Itachi loses his footing; shock sends him crashing down on the carpet; his left knee crashes right on the glass, cutting deep into his flesh.

It must be shock, because he barely feels a thing.

 

The gun reloads.

 

Itachi notices several things.

The first is the regret that surfaces. He didn't feel like calling Sasuke today; he was annoyed and tired. He didn’t answer his brother, when he did call. It feels foolish, now.

The second thing is that he's wet, and he's not sure if it's water or blood. He wistfully wishes he could know, that his eyes would work – in that moment, that bothers him more than the fact he's about to get shot, if he won't pass out due to blood loss in the process.

The third is a queer sense of peace. Considering the situation and the blood he's rapidly losing, he'd think it's the shock, but –

 

The fourth thing is a sense of déjà vu, as his nostrils fill with the scent of smoke and fish.

 

 

"Took you long enough." A different voice says, gruff.

"The fuck–"

"I don't see why you took so long to keep your end of the deal. And what’s with that knee? You went overboard – a thumb-prick would've done the job, y'know," as Itachi feels himself becoming dizzy, "but the sacrifice ain't so bad. Meaty." The voice perks. "Make peace with your maker. I'll give you 'till ten."

"Don't fuck with me!" it’s the burglar that answers, only the pitch of his voice is completely off. “The fuck is _that_?   

"One."

The voice is steady.

There’s shots.

Cursing.

"Two."

A gun reloads.

"Three. Four."

Then there are explosions.

"Five."

Itachi didn’t leave his television open.

"Six."

Itachi doesn't even own a television.

"Seven. Ow."

A pause.

"That one kind of tickled. That's nine."

Maybe the radio, then?

" _Fuck_."

The intruder sounds terrified.

"I'm sorry, man, I – I, listen, I wasn't – I wouldn't have killed that guy, that’s just– I–"

"Ten."

 

The counting ends.

 

' _What's now_?' Itachi wants to ask the voice in the dream. Ten steps should've gotten him three after the bathroom, and there're five more to the stairs, down to the living room or the kitchen.

Where are they going from here?

"We make it official. Thanks for the food."

 

Itachi drifts to the sound of some very bad table manners. He wants to tell Sasuke to chew with his mouth closed – the chewing sounds wet and obnoxious - but it doesn't seem that important.

After all, he does sound hungry.

 


	4. Signed, Sealed, Delivered - I'm Yours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Itachi shaves and finalizes his demonic contract.

Itachi wakes up to a bird screeching outside his window.

He presses his fingers to his thumbs. Left hand first. Then right. Then both.

He pops his joints, feeling stiff. On his way to the dresser, he steps over a cold sticky surface – which proves to be his phone screen.

He brushes his teeth, than his hair.

After breakfast, he calls Sasuke.

 

"I have a request," he asks before they end their idle chat. "I want to set up a silent alarm system. Can you send me some phone numbers of professionals in this area?"

"What brought that up?" Sasuke asks, sounding suspicious – Itachi can feel his frown from miles away. He shrugs and washes his hands, trying to recall what brought up the idea – but a moment later the inquiry melts away, the doubts but wisps of forgotten fears.

"Fine." Sasuke sighs into the line, knowing when he shouldn't push. "I'll send it in a few."

Sasuke is a good brother.

 

 

In the afternoon, Itachi unpacks some more dishes and cleans the cupboards.

"Weird," he mutters to himself as he’s finishing drying the dishes, placing the last glass back into the upper cupboard, second to the right.

 

"Could've sworn I've had six."

 

* * *

 

Itachi doesn't shave that often.

As a teenager, it bothered him – it was part of the overall characteristics that composed his feminine looks – barely any hair anywhere. Puberty made him lanky, the hair on his head thick, his eyebrows and lips full – but barely dusted his skin with any sign of masculinity or testosterone. He'd grudgingly look at the locker rooms or at the onsen, at curly hairs between tiny nipples, or sometimes around them; he'd inspect strangers’ arms in the summer, skin pale beneath a messy scattering.

In the business world, he convinced himself it made him seem more presentable – that he did not regard the white speckled beards of his colleagues as a sign of maturity or wisdom.

This all led down that even into his thirties, shaving was not Itachi’s forte – and shaving while blind, even more so. In the hospital, he'd let his mother shave him, an unpleasant monthly occurrence which left him feeling empty and humiliated.

Itachi was not a stranger to the fact he was arrogant as well as vain. As such, he would not allow himself to show himself in public looking neglected, like some poor college student that couldn’t be bothered to take a few minutes to tidy-up.

He was an Uchiha. Uchihas did not make excuses – and did not accept them.

_("And?" his father looks down at him, expression stern._

_"And above all," he parrots back, "Uchihas do not accept excuses they made up for themselves.")_

Itachi resolutely steps into the bathroom. He assembles his disposable razor, lathers his face in what he hopes is the suitable amount of shaving cream – spitting some of the foam out of his mouth. Then he picks the razor, clenches the sink with his right hand, and swipes it down in one smooth stroke.

He hisses, pushing his face under the tap.

 

"Yo."

Itachi stratles, jumps – then knocks his head against the cupboard above the sink.

"Missed me?"

Itachi turns, clutching the razor in his hand, feeling foolishingly embarrassed to still have some foam left on his face.

An odor starts compassing his bathroom, like that of fish – not like tuna or salmon, not like stale-water aquariums or plastic water parks that rot in the sun. It smells, Itachi thinks, like his bathroom has just been submerged into the nearby pond, and Itachi is drowning in it.

 

"No tribute or anything, either.” The stranger, with their deep timbre, sighs. “Guess that's fair, since the first sacrifice was delicious –"

"The cops should be here in four minutes." Itachi cuts in.

"So the tribute is coming here? _Nice_. In that case, you shouldn't be so tense –" the voice pauses, humming thoughtfully. "Ah, you'd have to excuse me, a good meal tends to make me a bit rash. I may have let a part of _it_ drift. Easy to fix, just keep still for a minute –"

A spot of cold skin, clammy, like a corpse, presses itself to Itachi's skin; it heats up.

Then a pulse goes through him, disorienting; he feels like he's in a video fast-forwarded by a sugar-high toddler. The back of his stomach pull and twists.

He blinks.

 

Then,

Itachi _remembers_.

 

"You've killed him." He breathes out.

"'Course I did. That's a part of what being a _sacrifice_ entitles." Is the dry reply. "Plenty of sins on that one. It was a good choice. The more a sacrifice has, the better it is to cement a contract.” It sounds pleased. “This makes ours pretty unshakeable."

"I didn't – " Itachi breathes out. "I didn't mean for you to kill him."

"Why did you have him as a sacrifice, then?"

"I – I didn't even – how did you come here?" Itachi panics. He's hallucinating, and the appointment he’d set with the psychotherapist is starting to feel like an upcoming sentence for a coerced time in a mental institution from which he’d never escape. "You're supposed to be in the sea – only – only you aren't, because I didn't fall there in the first place. I've hit my head. You're– you’re a hallucination."

 

A large hand wraps around his wrist and squeezes. Itachi’s bones are grinding against each other painfully, until he drops the razor, biting his lip. Another huge palm cups his still-foamy cheek. "You've got a striking imagination, to come up with me, then." Stale breath ghosts over his closed eyelids. "I'm quite the catch."

Itachi breathes through his nose, through the unpleasant smell. It feels like toxic gas, because with each breath, it becomes less and less abrasive against Itachi’s sense of smell. "You're not really here." A cord tugs in his chest painfully as he says so. The voice growls.

 

"The contract is new. The terms are still settling. Don't strain it."

"You're not really here. I am at my place, having a nervous breakdown." Every word makes the muscles in his body grow stiffer and stiffer. His mouth tastes bloody. "When this thing will be over, I will get up, wash up, then call– "

"Tsk," the voice tuts, sounding annoyed. "Stubborn."

A very-real mouth presses against his.

Itach gasps, and a tongue shoves into his mouth, rough and raspy against his own. He tries to back away, but the floor-tiles are cold against his back.

The cords that has been pulling at him still their movements; then they warp around his heart and he's filled with warmth and strength and a sense of fullness that has him spinning; he can almost see stars sparkling behind his eyelids, singing to him, dancing around to –

The mouth leaves his and he's gasping, leaning forwards against a broad chest, a heavy hand against his back.

 

"You're real," he says, and the cords vibrate happily inside him, content.

"I'm real." The hallucination replies.

"Kisame." Itachi says, and _feel_ the cords start to glow in a golden light, can _taste_ salt and seaweed against the roof of his mouth.

The voice tuts again. "If you insist." Kisame replies.

"Why?" Itachi asks, because he can't gather his thoughts enough for anything more coherent.

A forehead presses against his own and a mouth smiles against his cheek.

"You're the first blind genius I've met. And you still haven't told me what _genius_ is."

 

On a cloudy autumn morning, in a renovated house with old foundations and freshly painted walls, right by a room with an unstained carpet floor, a half-unshaven man starts laughing.


	5. Consenting Parties

Kisame, Itachi finds, is not that bad, for a demon.

Certainly not a bad one to tie your life too.

He's not a demon, exactly, nor a ghost or a spirit or any of those " _human categories_ ", as he disdainfully calls them. He's an expert at avoiding answering a straight answer, mostly ones about his existence or about their contract – but he does offer pieces of useful information.

 

On their first night together, sitting in the living room, Itachi tries to establish a moderate sense of control – since it appears control is a liquid dripping from between his clasped hands, and he hadn't managed to save himself even a single drop.

 

"Don't touch me again." He says, an out loud is sounds harsher – yet in the same time, does not.

"Don't make unreasonable demands," Kisame scoffs at him. "That's not within the terms of the contract."

  _Be exact_ , Itachi thinks, and rephrases.

"Within our contract, you are not to touch me without my permission." Itachi feels the cords shift inside, like restless snakes, shedding their previous skin and regrowing it anew. "Whichever answer I will give, you would honour."

The snakelike threads now glare ahead at Kisame, waiting to strike.

"Within our contract," Kisame answers, and the snakes rise, "I will honour your skin and your shell as you deem fit; I will ask for permission, and permission would be granted, within the terms previously set between us."

"Permission would not always be granted," Itachi warns, and clarifies. "My permission, that is, to you."

"Permission, or lack of it, would always be upheld. So it was agreed."

Itachi feels the cords leap at the words.

"So it was agreed," he concedes.

The cords thicken and warp around each other, making Itachi feel eerily content.

 

"Now,” Kisame says, “about this place."

 

* * *

 

By the end of the week, Itachi wishes he was a lawyer, and also gains even more respect for the lawyers he knows. They both revise everything possible between them – Itachi sets boundaries which Kisame softens around the edges, trying to create loopholes – and Itachi is on his toes, strained in his effort to keep himself constantly vigilant from a looming threat he’s sure awaits him.

Kisame does keep his word – he hadn’t touched Itachi in the past five days, all but once. During the third day, in which Itachi questioned Kisame’s existence again, then immediately collapsed onto the floor, panting as the cords tried to pierce out of his chest, screeching, seething.

 

"Can I?" Kisame grunts next to him, voice tight.

"Can you what?" Itachi knows what he means, but will not give in into such loose phrasing.

"May I," Kisame rephrases, "place my hands against your back?"

"Yes, you may." It’s if the large hands that settle on Itachi’s back also settle the cords back, letting them coil and hiss until they’re placated.

Itachi sighs into Kisame's neck in their awkward embrace.

The smell isn’t that bad, up close.

It smells like –

 

 

"Say," Itachi asks. "Do you have gills?"

 

* * *

 

“What do you need a pond for?” Sasuke’s voice sounds suspicious, over the phone, but not overly so. They’d been talking more, this past month, and Itachi things his brother sounds far happier than he remembers him being.

“Water lilies.” Itachi replies serenely; the knife thumps against the cutting board in a steady pace.

"First the alarm system, now this.” Sasuke sighs, and Itachi can almost feel it against his cheek. “I'm worried about you, nii-san. You spend too much time by yourself."

Itachi smiles against the receiver, then uses the back of the blade to slide the meat down the cutting board and into a ceramic bowl. His brother is wonderful. He loves him so much – he couldn’t imagine living without him.

"You needn’t worry, Sasuke.” He washes his hands, then dries them against his pants. “I'm doing fine."

He really should be getting new towels for the kitchen.

Itachi turns and takes four and a half steps forwards, before placing the dish upon the dinner table.

“Enjoy your food.”

“Who’re you talking to?” Sasuke inquires, alert.

“Just a stray. He was hungry.”

“You haven’t told me you’ve got yourself a cat!”

“I haven’t.” Itachi replies.

 

The blood sticks to the underside of nails.

 

* * *

 

“What’s this?” Kisame is waving something in front of Itachi’s face again. Itachi frowns.

“I do hope you’re aware blindness is not a temporary condition,” he swats at the hand before him lightly, only just-so that the cords show no sign of stirring. “Since it is a crucial point in our contract.”

Kisame snorts at him. “Has someone chewed your hands off? Can’t you use them?”

A small glass container is pressed to his palm.

Itachi considers; he leans back on the couch and rubs the smooth surface of the glass, his fingertips brushing against the thinly printed letters, rounding against a the thin plastic neck of the cap.

“It looks like old blood,” Kisame provides without being asked, “but smells like poison.”

“Where did you get this from?” Itachi asks idly, trying to twist the cap open; when that fails, he takes to turning it either way.

“I’ve found it.” Kisame responds in his rather annoying habit of stating obvious thing as deemable answers.

“Where did you find it?” Itachi uses the lower part of his shirt to cover the cap to hack it off – and it pops open.

“The ocean.” Kisame replies unhelpfully.

Itachi lowers his head to whiff at the bottle, only to scrunch his nose and cough back. The smell is unpleasant yet somehow familiar, and he rakes his brain to pull the right sensory memory.

“May I touch you?” Kisame speaks from behind his shoulder, and Itachi startles.

“What for?”

“You know what this is. I can help you find that knowledge.”

Itachi pops his knuckles, an old nervous habit he doesn’t have to hide from his father anymore. “You may.” He approves.

Kisame’s skin feels as peculiar as ever, yet considerably more pleasant than the texture Itachi originally experienced. He places both his palms to the sides of Itachi’s face, covering his ears.

‘He could snap my neck,’ Itachi thinks, unbidden.

“I could.” Kisame says, then plunges in.

It’s a disconnecting feeling at first, the sensation of your thoughts being sifted through, sent to wherever direction they go to without Itachi’s consent; he merely feels, just able to stand aside and exist throughout the experience.

“Focus on the smell.” Kisame’s voice comes from a distant place, and Itachi doesn’t see why he shouldn’t listen, so he abides.

A pressure is steaming from within his mind, but there’s an embracing coolness from outside that grounds him, and it tingles and bites and caresses and _that’s a genius_ ­­–

 

“How’re you feeling?” Kisame asks, voice gruff.

The everyday ‘ _Fine_ ’ is about to pass Itachi’s lips, before he registers he really isn’t all that well.

“Drowsy,” he mumbles, “migraine.”

“Migraine?”

“Headache.” He moans, pressing the back of his palms against his eyes.

“I apologize.” Kisame says, and Itachi faintly recognizes he’s not longer sitting on the couch, but lying on it, with his head feeling too heavy to move anywhere but the present. “I overdid it.”

“That’s fine,” Itachi grinds out. “I just need a moment.”

“I’ve found the answer.”

“You did?”

“Nail polish.”

Itachi groans, and buries his head under one of the pillows.

 

( _“It looks great!” Sasuke’s voice, so young and carefree, makes Itachi’s heart swell with love.)_

Itachi lets Kisame paint his toenails.

His feet have always been very ticklish – that’s why he can’t help but laugh.

 

The headache doesn’t lift for three days.

 

( _“I won’t tell father.”)_

(Father finds out. _)_

 

* * *

 

"What do you get from this contract?"

Itachi is in his bed, warm beneath the thick duvet. Kisame’s sitting at his side, above the covers; he doesn’t enjoy the bed very much. Itachi ended up canceling his appointment to the psychotherapist. Even if it is an illusion (– _there’s an unpleasant tugging at his chest–)_ it’s been a long time since he’d been this content with life. He wiggles his toes, thinking how Kisame held his feet so very gently in his rouge palms. For Kisame, it was only a matter of curiosity, not an intimate gesture or anything of the sorts.

But Itachi – Itachi never thought he’d find someone who’d offer to paint his toes, just because.

He’s going to buy sandals, tomorrow.

Kisame shifts by his side, and Itachi can tell he’s weighing his words.

He thinks it should probably be odd, to be in bed with this demon – like it should make him feel more things than he’s currently feeling, probably.

"Tethering to this reality.” Kisame says. “This earth. For creatures like you humans, existence is finite – it starts, it ends, and this knowledge bounds you to it. Most of the time you use those annoying things like names or limiting you views and fixating your dependence on your sense of self with those. But for others, existing takes lots of energy. Keeping your existence, remaining constant, defining it – it gets tiresome, after a time. The fact you believe I exist links me to your existence, and that way I can save energy."

Itachi hums in acknowledgement. That’s the longest piece of information Kisame had ever spoken to him.

"What do you do with the surplus energy, now?" he turns to Kisame, interested. If it is an illusion (– _the tugging grow more intense, more unpleasant–)_ it’s sort of surprising – he isn’t much of a fantasy-kind-of-guy, overall, so his subconsciousness seems to be full of unorthodox things.”

"I can't explain it to a being like you." Kisame snorts. Itachi can feel him shifting, probably crossing his arms against his chest. He rubs against his eye and sits up, leaning against the bedframe, staring ahead at the demon.

"Try me."

Kisame takes a few more moments before answering; Itachi had grown used to it by now, and it doesn’t bother him – those silent moments in the conversation. When they’re not filled with judgementality, they’re just that – silent and full of the future.

"I'm using the energy to send it out to myself, in the past – to make my print upon the layers of reality more solid – and after a while, I plan to direct it to the existence of my future-self." Kisame finally says, and Itachi thinks that might be the reason Kisame hadn’t been giving direct answers up until now.

He’s pretty bad at it.

"That makes zero sense.” Itachi snorts. “If you're here right now –"

Kisame snorts. "I told you you wouldn't get it."

"­Fine.” Itachi feels like he’s been thrown back in time, to that one incident he had made the mistake of starting an argument with a philosophy student. “And that's all you do?"

"I can also alternate reality better. But there's not much point to altering physical dimensions."

Sounds like something a hallucination would say.

Itachi chuckles, and wonders, briefly, if he _indeed_ went ma­d–

 

The pain is _electrifying_.

Itachi grabs at his throat, gasping for breath; he’d convulsed so hard he was thrown to the floor, but the bruises are almost nothing against the agony burning at his chest.

“I _told_ _you_ ,” Kisame growls, stilted, “ _don’t do that.”_ He pants, and Itachi can hear Kisame is, if not pained, at least very much uncomfortable at the moment.

 

“You may,” Itachi approves out loud as soon as he’s able to talk, without being asked; Kisame picks him up and wraps himself around Itachi, making his head buzz with endorphins.

“Sorry,” he mumbles to Kisame’s chest, feeling like a child. “It’s hard.”

“That’s fine.” Kisame answers in a voice that sounds anything but. “We’ll need to stay like this until the contract settles back.”

Itachi nods a silent agreement, and his mouth tastes of salt.

 

There’s silence.

 

“What’s outside the window?” Itachi asks, quietly.

“The ocean,” Kisame replies, sounding miles away. “It’s the ocean, but in the wrong place.”

“What else?”

“There are lights, like fish luring their prey into their stomachs. More than I’ve ever seen. Trying to pull us up there.”

“How many?”

 

By the time Kisame finishes counting the stars in the sky aloud, Itachi is already dreaming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if ever in doubt regarding your perception of reality, please don't do as itachi did and turn to seek professional help ♥ there's no shame in it


	6. Dreamscape

Colours.

Itachi misses them badly.

They’re all around him now; a field stretching beyond the horizon, with poppies, tulips, sunflowers, violets, lilies –

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

When he opens them, there’s someone sitting next to him.

 

“It’s a nice dream.”

Itachi regards the other person. “Why are you here?”

The person shrugs, and it’s a small thing that Itachi longs for; he missed non-verbal communication.

“Dreams are the most exciting thing about humans. This is the closest you can understand how I exist; when you’re creating those unstable, temporary dimensions for yourselves. I wanted to look at yours.”

“They don’t usually look like this.” Itachi motions with his head to the flowers around. “This is the first time I’m having this dream.”

The person looks at him.

Maybe person isn’t exactly the right word.

Rather, the demon is blue; mostly humanoid, he has the sharp features of a shark. His eyes are small and white, and there are three gills at each of his cheeks, above his sharp cheekbones. There are gills at his bare shoulders, as well. His short hair is a dark blue, sticking upwards, and his grin full of razor-sharp teeth. He’s much bigger than Itachi is, but Itachi had already known that.

“You look just like I pictured you,” he tells Kisame.

“I don’t.”

“You do,” he insists.

“No,” the demon shakes his head. “This is your mind, and my ability here is limited. This is not a flexible dimension to others. The form I have here is the form you gave me. The form of a demon from your grandmother’s stories.”

“Oh,” Itachi says, disappointed.

“Don’t worry about it,” Kisame, red and skinny, grumbles through his tusks. “Exteriors are meaningless.”

Itachi hums and lies down. Up close, he can’t tell where one flower starts and the other ends. The colour leaks from them, petal by petal, as the field grows blank around him.

“How do you like my dream thus far?” Itachi asks, as gritty lines break in thin air.

“It’s pretty pointless.”

Itachi smiles.

“I know. Isn’t it great?”

He doesn’t close his eyes; together they watch the world crumble and distort until it fades.

 

 

Then there’s just nothing,

and them.


	7. Terms and Conditions (might not apply)

“Do you feel?” Itachi asks over breakfast.

“In which capacity are you referring to, Itachi-san?” Kisame asks politely. He picked the suffixes from listening into Itachi and Sasuke’s phonecalls, and Itachi can’t bother another negotiation over it. Itachi can hears the meat grinding within his jaws, even when Kisame is chewing with his mouth closed.

Itachi chews his own rice and considers how the frame the question.

“Have you ever been… happy?”

“Happy?” Kisame takes a moment. “No.”

Itachi blinks in surprise. The answer is unexpectedly morbid. He doesn’t know what to say.

“What are you distressed about?” Kisame grunts. The bond between them sizzles and wavers. “That doesn’t mean I’m not pleased with my existence. I would not take part in an existence I am not pleased with. You humans are so troublesome,” he grinds his teeth, “I don’t have emotions. I’m not the result of billions of years of chain-mistakes, a group of cells grouping with others to protect their unity.”

But Itachi doesn’t seem to hear him, lost in the melancholy of this new fact. It’s been four months they’ve been together now, and Kisame had become a meaningful part of his life.

“If I’d – “

“Don’t say that!” Kisame snaps. A chair drags against the floor.

“ – _die_ tomorrow _–_ ”

Then everything just

 

fades.

 

* * *

 

“You never listen.” Kisame states. It’s true enough, and Itachi’s mouth feels numb, so he doesn’t bother with a response.

“At this rate you’re going to kill yourself,” he sounds angry, but that’s a lie, isn’t it? Kisame isn’t angry at him. He’s not anything, but the proof Itachi has utterly lost it and is hallu–

The pain is so utterly sharp and awful Itachi wonders if death was not preferable, after all.

It’s absolute. It’s a fact. It’s life and existence and it has always been and would never stop, keep Itachi to suffer for eternity until–

“Why do you keep doing this to yourself?” Kisame grunts from his right. “Your basic drive should be to preserve your own life, your own body. But you keep with this crap, even when it’s killing you. You go against our bond and choke your soul – and for _what_?”

“Would you miss me?” Itachi asks, throat choked. He feels so small, so insignificant, in such a huge room and world and it’s all empty.

“What kind of stupid question is that.” Kisame answers, poking sharp claws at his face.

 _Never mind_ , Itachi want to say, but lying takes effort and energy his heart selfishly hoards to keep until its next beat.

“You really don’t know,” Kisame sounds disbelieving and angry still; “I fail to comprehend how your kind survived thus far.”

Itachi chests hurts, but he can’t move his hand in order to keep it from bursting.

“Itachi,” Kisame says, “neither of us exists without the other, anymore. I would not miss you – “ Itachi holds his breath – “I would cease to be.”

“What?”

“More trouble than you’re worth,” Kisame snorts, shoving him to make himself room on the bed. Warmth wraps around him, solid and safe. “How am I doing, as a primate?”

“Not bad,” Itachi smiles weakly, and cuddles close.

“Itachi, I don’t have emotions, like you do,” Kisame says. “It distresses you in a way I would never understand, just like you don’t understand many things about me. I don’t have emotions, but it shouldn’t matter.” For the first time, Kisame sounds hesitant; Itachi can feel his words are sincere, and that just makes them more painful.

He nods into Kisame’s chest,

                                   and wishes to

                                                     disappear.


	8. Aftertaste

There’s green tea on the table.

It looks like medicine and smells even worse.

“It’s getting cold.”

“Grandma,” Itachi breathes out. He sounds… different. He looks down at his hands – they’re so small. She’s sitting right in front of him, her wrinkled face kind and lovelier than ever.

“Itachi-kun.”

The next moment he’s in her arms, burying his face into her protection and the smell of forest and herbs and prescription medicine.

“What’s wrong, Itachi-kun?”

“I don’t know,” he tells her. “You left.”

“I did,” she smiles. “Everyone leaves, at some point.”

“I didn’t want you to go.”

“Well, nobody wants to go, but the road is still there.”

He looks up at her. “And what if no one would take the road?”

She smiles. It as radiant as he remembers, more so than the sunlight on the patio where they’re sitting like they always do, having tea, just the two of them.

“The tea, Itachi-kun. It’s getting cold.”

He steps back and sits next to her on his own pillow, wanting to lean into her like a steady pillar, but keeps to the edges of the warmth.

The tea tastes foul, like it always did, but he drinks it anyway.

Grandmother made it for him.

“I don’t think I’d ever find someone, baa-chan” he blurts.

He doesn’t understand what he’s saying; who is he looking for?

“Why’s that?”

“I can’t look for them.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t try so hard, for things that are outside of your grasps. You can stretch your arms as far as you can reach, but you’d never reach the stars. Even if they’re calling you, it doesn’t mean you should go.”

“It’d leave me with nothing to hold onto, then.” He mutters, looking into the bottom of his empty cup. The leaves are sodden and clumped. At the edge of his vision, he sees the old shogi board that baa-chan always pulled out when he’d come and visit.

“Itachi-kun,” his grandmother smiles at him. “You’ve always been far older than you should’ve. Maybe it’s time to let that go. You can have great things, if you’d give them the chance.”

“He’s a demon, baa-chan.” Itachi’s voice fills with guilt. “And I’ve told him my name.”

“Names are important.” His grandmother nods. “And he has yours, then?”

“He does.”

“And you, his?”

“Yes.”

“Then everything else is just empty words.”

She looks at Itachi.

“Itachi-kun,” she says. “You’re my eldest grandson. When you came into this world, when I’ve seen you the first time, held you in my arms – that made me so happy, like I never thought I could possibly be. Those moments, I’d never forget them – but no matter how many words I’d use, you’d could never understand how I’ve felt that day, when you came out into the world and made me into your grandmother.”

She places a wrinkly, thin hand above his own.

“At the end of the day, after all the things you’ve been through. Does it really matter, that Kisame doesn’t love you?”

Itachi feels the sun against his skin and the bitter tea in his mouth.

“Are you really baa-chan?”

The old woman smile doesn’t falter.

“Always so suspicious, Itachi-kun. Always, so little faith. I shouldn’t have let your father do as he pleased. I shouldn’t have let you grow up so fast, to try to escape from under his shadow. I’m sorry. I’m not your grandmother, not in the way you remember me.”

“Was this all a lie?”

“Itachi, there aren’t any lies in our dreams. Only truths we are unwilling to see.”

She presses a kiss into his forehead.

“Don’t let us meet again too soon. There’s no rush, Itachi-kun. A shogi board is patient.”

“Where are you going?”

“Same as you. Home.”

 

Come morning, Itachi’s mouth tastes bitter.

He washes his mouth.


	9. Popping the Question

“Kisame,” Itachi calls him one morning, when the dew on the leaves are still fresh and the toads at the pond aren't yet awake enough to start croaking. “What keeps you here?”

“You really are an idiot. The contract obliges you to be a genius, but I haven’t figured out that part yet. You should've understood by now.”

Kisame’s cutting onions, and it stings the atmosphere, making Itachi tear up and rub at his eyes.

“Wherever you go, I go. You can’t follow me, but I can follow you. Nothing keeps me here – there’s just nothing that’d make it worth leaving.”

Itachi thinks carefully before asking the next question. His heart is already throbbing in warning. “And would it have mattered to you, if you would’ve signed the contract with another human?”

Kisame, surprisingly, bursts into laughter.

“There’s never been another human for me.”

 

And after that, there’s no more questions for either one of them.

 

("Only you," Kisame says, and it, by itself, is more than enough.)


	10. Fisheye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> last one :)

Kisame is not particularly fond of humans, but existence can be tedious when you just sit by and let it happen. Itachi’s existence is too young for sins or grievances, and  the opportunities he holds seem to stretch from him until the end of the ocean, looking sweet and fresh and full of promise and grains of time.

But Itachi’s soul is somehow crooked, somehow not quite right. Kisame thinks it’s probably him who did it, unloading Itachi on a vessel to cross a plain it was not prepared for. Letting him embark in a journey and throwing out his shoes when Itachi wasn’t looking.

Kisame only minds to keep most of it intact; their connection binds them now and Itachi doesn’t make for a bad company, compared to Kisame’s previous meals.

As time goes on and on like time does, the threads bind them both tightly and sink into Kisame with every step, and he knows that Itachi and himself can never be like anything either of them planned to be.

Kisame’s steps grow longer and longer and Itachi is always by his side, and the road stretches wider and brighter for them, right until the end, and a bit after that.

**Author's Note:**

> All feedback is very much appreciated! ♥


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